Latest Hydrogen News Global Aug'21

Latest Hydrogen News from around the world:

1. UK Hydrogen Strategy: Aiming for 5GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030 for use across the economy
2. US Hydrogen Strategy: Infrastructure bill that calls for the creation of four regional hubs supported by $9bn of public funds, with a further $1bn slated for clean hydrogen R&D.
3. Oil & Gas to Hydrogen: According to a survey of over 1,000 oil and gas executives by consulting firm DNV GL, the proportion of oil and gas companies intending to invest in the hydrogen economy doubled from 20% to 42% in 2020. Half of senior oil and gas professionals expect hydrogen to be a significant part of the energy mix by 2030, with a fifth of surveyed oil and gas companies already active in the hydrogen market. The world will need to produce 80 exajoules (or 660 million tons) of hydrogen a year by 2050, according to the Hydrogen Council. Doing that with electrolyzers, the only viable zero-carbon pathway, would require more electricity than the entire world produced in 2019. That will need about nine times more wind and solar generators than exist worldwide to date, according to BloombergNEF.
4. Doubts on Hydrogen: Researchers found that the greenhouse gas footprint of blue hydrogen was more than 20 percent greater than burning natural gas or coal for heat.
5. Blue Hydrogen Protest: The chair of the UK Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Association (UK HFCA), Christopher Jackson, has stepped down because he could no longer support blue hydrogen, which he warned could prolong fossil fuel use and damage the nation’s climate agenda.
6. World’s first fossil free steel: Sweden’s SSAB says it has “produced the world’s first fossil-free steel” and has started delivering it to the Volvo Group, its first customer.
7. Combustion of Hydrogen is not green: It is widely claimed that burning hydrogen results in only water. While this is true of fuel cells it is not the case when hydrogen is burned. Like any high-temperate combustion, hydrogen flames lead to reactions between nitrogen and oxygen, and in turn to health-harming nitrogen dioxide pollution. It is unlikely that the nitrogen dioxide from hydrogen boilers will be worse than the fossil gas and oil used today, but it may not improve either.
8. Counter by Oil & Gas on Blue Hydrogen research: Claims in the study  is that — in the US — 2.6% of gas is lost to the atmosphere during production and transportation, causing climate change. However this figure is disputed by O&G, while claiming that the figure for the UK’s largest blue hydrogen project, Zero Carbon Humber, is in fact less than one hundredth of this.
9. Sinopec Plans: China’s Sinopec Corp plans to spend 30 billion yuan ($4.6 billion) on hydrogen energy by 2025 as the state oil and gas major pivots to producing natural gas and hydrogen as part of becoming a carbon-neutral energy provider by 2050.
10. Direct Solar to Hydrogen: Repsol is developing the process, called photoelectrocatalysis, together with Spanish gas grid operator Enagas. The demo plant is slated to occupy close to half a hectare and have a production of 100 kilogrammes of renewable H2 per day. SunHydrogen said by optimising the water electrolysis at the nano-level, the company’s low-cost nano-particles mimic photosynthesis to efficiently use sunlight to separate hydrogen from water.
11. Race to find best location: “There is already a race around the world for the best hydrogen technologies and the best locations for hydrogen production,” German science minister Anja Karliczek said. “From our point of view, Namibia has particularly good chances in this competition. We want to use them together.”
12. Global race to Net Zero:National strategies were officially announced by India, the UK, Russia and Colombia, while the US introduced a preliminary national hydrogen strategy in the giant 2,702-page bipartisan infrastructure bill that was passed by the country’s Senate. All of this adds to the national hydrogen plans already announced by Japan, South Korea, Canada, Australia, Chile, Norway, Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Portugal, while China, Brazil, Turkey, New Zealand, Ukraine and Oman are also working on their own H₂ programmes. However, critics claim “one kilogram of hydrogen — produced from 50kWh — would enable a fuel-cell car to travel 80-90km. Now I take the 50kWh and I put them in an electric car, that car would drive 250km. It’s even worse with heating.”
13. Aquamarine hydrogen:  It based on the solar-thermal driven thermal decomposition of methane. Catalytic methane decomposition can be based on self-standing/supported metal-based catalysts such as Fe, Ni, Co, and Cu, metal oxide supports such as SiO₂, Al₂O₃, and TiO₂, and carbon-based catalysts such as carbon blacks, carbon nanotubes, and activated carbons, the pathway of higher technology readiness level (TRL).
14. Offshore Hydrogen in Brazil: Enterprize Energy chairman Ian Hatton claimed Enterprize can develop sea-based platform concept that produces hydrogen and ammonia near turbines without the need to transmit power to land.
15. Geothermal Hydrogen in Japan: The construction for the demonstration plant started in August 2020. The hydrogen supply capacity is about 10Nm3/h. Obayashi Corporation built the hydrogen plant in Kokonoe town in Oita Prefecture in Kyushu using geothermal energy to decompose water to produce hydrogen.
16. Rapid growth in Hydrogen: “More than 40 countries have now published a hydrogen strategy or are developing one. More than 90 projects are being planned worldwide to use hydrogen in industry. Electricity generators have almost doubled their planned hydrogen-fired turbine capacity since January.” Martin Tengler, lead hydrogen analyst at BNEF